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The public affairs shows — “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation” and “This Week” — used to set the agenda for the nation’s capital with their news-making interviews and immensely influential audience. Now the buzz around the shows is more likely to center on gossipy criticism about the hosts, notably “Meet the Press’s” David Gregory, whose fate has become an incessant subject of conversation, most recently in a Washington Post story on Monday. Meanwhile, fans complain about the recurrence of familiar guests — Sen. John McCain again? — who simply relay party talking points that often go unchallenged.

“For political junkies and those who just want to catch up, the Sunday shows still are relevant, but they’re not the signature events they once were,” Tom Brokaw, the NBC News veteran who briefly moderated “Meet the Press” in 2008, said in an interview. “I first appeared on ‘Meet the Press’ during Watergate, and it was a secular mass in Washington; the faithful never missed it.”

Political veterans, congressional aides, former administration officials and longtime journalists all attested to the Sunday shows’ decline. The programs are no longer the agenda-setting platforms of days past, they said. Instead, the broadcasts have become a venue for lawmakers to push familiar talking points and for talking heads to exchange conventional wisdom. Occasionally there is an interview or discussion that will make headlines — Vice President Joe Biden’s endorsement of gay marriage, which preceded President Barack Obama’s own announcement, comes to mind. But that has become the exception rather than the rule.

Not surprisingly, the few who adamantly insist that the programs are relevant are the hosts and producers.

“I do not agree that ‘Meet the Press’ is not what it has always been, which is a driver of the conversation,” said David Gregory, the current host, echoing remarks made by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and CBS’s Bob Schieffer. “Administration figures, politicians and candidates come to ‘Meet the Press’ because they know what ‘Meet the Press’ represents.”

Increasingly, what “Meet the Press” and its competitors represent are still-powerful brands struggling to maintain influence in a radically changed media environment, where news consumption is more fast-paced and fractured than ever and “the news cycle” these shows used to command no longer really exists.

Since the death of former “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert in 2008, there has been much hemming and hawing over the quality of the Sunday show hosts, none of whom have a reputation for tough interviews. Gregory has particularly suffered in the press; on Monday, The Washington Post Style section published what amounts to the latest installment in the host’s rolling public relations disaster under the headline, “What’s Wrong With David Gregory?”

Gregory doesn’t put much stock in the criticism, saying, “If I could figure out why certain perceptions existed, I wouldn’t have time to do my job.”

But complaints about the hosts overlook a dire reality, which is that the changed media environment has dealt a severe blow to the Sunday institution itself. In an era of 24-hour news delivered through digital snippets, the historic influence of the weekend morning shows may now be irrecoverable.

The Obama administration has turned an especially cold shoulder to the programs. Past administrations would dole out key newsmakers almost every week. The George W. Bush administration frequently sent the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others on the show in an effort to shape the national conversation.

“When I was at the White House and on the Hill, Sunday shows were either the exclamation point at the end of a week or the capital letter that began a new week. Today, they’re part of the endless dot, dot, dots that are part of political coverage,” said Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary. “There is so much news and so many outlets, even quality Sunday shows don’t break through like they use to.”

Journalists recognize the change as well.

“The news cycle moves so quickly and with so many diverse entry points for quality political news that it is difficult for the Sunday shows, as they once did, to ‘drive’ the week’s political news,” Jill Abramson, the executive editor of The New York Times, wrote in an email. “A week is now eternity, after all.”

That reality has radically altered the way politicians use the Sunday programs. In the past, the platform was so influential that presidential administrations and lawmakers met nearly every week to strategically plan out appearances, hoping to impact the latest political or policy debate.

“There was a time when everything would stop on Friday afternoon and Cabinet members and senators would gather around a table and say, ‘Who are we putting out on Sunday?’” one former Democratic White House official said. “Now if you want to make news, you can tweet it, or you can call any number of outlets.”

The options for influencing the news today are numerous: A politician can go on cable news, give a newspaper interview, stop by talk radio, hold a press conference or simply send out a tweet. And he or she can do any of those things on a Tuesday night or a Friday afternoon. The news will invariably percolate up the media chain — from the Twitter-chattering press corps to the front pages of leading news sites — and become fodder for next Sunday’s roundtables.

Lacking for willing participants, the shows increasingly serve as a home for party spokesmen who seem to relish the national limelight. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) made a combined 38 appearances across the three shows in 2013.

Meanwhile, other lawmakers understand that while the Sunday shows are still a powerful platform, reaching a combined 9 million to 10 million viewers a week, they are no longer essential to their messaging strategy.

“A generation ago, people would go on Sunday shows because they thought it would set the tone for the week,” said Alex Conant, the press secretary for Sen. Marco Rubio, who has made two appearances so far in 2014. “When we go on Sunday shows, it’s more to talk to a big audience in a thoughtful way, rather than to generate Monday morning headlines.”

That the Obama administration has been less proactive on Sundays may be a unique feature of this White House — “this president hasn’t made great use of his Cabinet,” the former White House official said — but it is also a byproduct of the new media environment. Obama’s team has always put a premium on direct-to-voter messaging and, when it does do national media, often favors going outside the Beltway.